Iran holds separate nuclear talks with Russia, China

Iran's top nuclear negotiator held talks with Both deputies Russian and Chinese foreign ministers separately on April 8.

Mehr News Agency reported that Abbad Araqchi who also serves as the deputy foreign minister for Legal and International Affairs met with his Russian and Chinese counterparts on the sidelines of the new round of nuclear meeting between Iran and P5+1 in Vienna.

Mehr didn't give further information about the details of separate talks.

Iran and the P5+1 start the third round of their talks in Vienna, on April 8, which is part of efforts to reach a final agreement to fully resolve the decade-old dispute over Tehran's nuclear program. The negotiations are slated to last until April 9.

Recently, Iran and the P5+1 held three days of expert talks in Vienna on April 3-5.

Both sides reached a common interim accord in November 2013, which took force in January.

Under a six-month interim deal between Iran and the P5+1 which took effect on Jan. 20, the six major powers agreed to give Iran access to its $4.2 billion in revenues blocked overseas if the country fulfills the deal's terms which offer sanctions relief in exchange for steps on curbing the Iranian nuclear program.

The U.S. and its Western allies suspect Iran of developing a nuclear weapon - something that Iran denies. The Islamic Republic has on numerous occasions stated that it does not seek to develop nuclear weapons, using nuclear energy for medical research instead.